Grand Space Opera 3D Entry: Christopher Kalin

#22

I’ll probably tone down the hilights on the black ‘rubbery’ surface. Other than that, I think I’m pretty happy with it.

Overcontrast - Thanks. It’s nice to know I’m not lost in this talented crowd.

#23

you work very good -wish you do your best!:thumbsup:

#24

I love this idea, very original. Good work.

#25

Cool idea! I really want to see how this will come out.

:beer:

Stefano

#26

Yes the stuff with olympics is interesting but are you sure it’s ok with rules?
And I like the grey ship it looks fantastic.

#27

WOW! Thanks everybody. I wanted to do something that didn’t involve expolsions, yet had a latent energy just hovering about it. I’m doing my best to translate from my brain to the 3d world.

“Yes the stuff with olympics is interesting but are you sure it’s ok with rules?” - Kaajey -
The way I understand it, we can do anything that would be considered ‘galactically important’.
I went back to the rules -
“The subject could be an individual or group, a space ship or fleet, a city or city-world. Whatever it is, it should capture a pivotal moment that is part of a vast galactic civilisation or conflict.”
My Olympic rings could be considered the city-world, and the fleet kinda speaks for itself. The pivotal moment - well, I’ll let the viewer decide for themselves - Is it the beginning or the end? Are these ships from all over the galaxy converging for the first time or the last?

Thanks for ‘worrying’ for me. Everyone is being very encouraging.

#28

I added the flag of the planet that the ship is from. I didn’t intend for it to look like anything specific - for all I know, it says “I like cheese” in a language I don’t know. If it does mean something, someone please let me know and I will change it.
I will post a comp of the textures I’ve been using if anyone is interested.

#29

Please don’t take offense to this at all, rather take it as constructive as you feel necessary, please, I mean no harm at all but more so hopefully as help.

I think the idea of a futuristic space olympics is a great idea, a [I]lot[/I] could be done with it. And it is especially conducive for capturing the 'grand operaticness' that is the challenge. However, I don't feel you have captured this in your initial concepts.

Since the birth of the olympics and held true to this day, the olympics is about displaying superior strength and athleticness using simply the human body, no aids. And the 5 rings are a symbol of modern-day olympics; in a few hundred or thousand years I would assume the symbol might change. The 5 rings symbolize the 5 major regions of OUR earth: Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe, and Oceania and every national flag in the world contains at least one of those 5 colors (source) So, if we were in space, maybe even colonizing, the symbol would have to change to fit to that modern day. Also, since the origin of olympics it has delt with only athletic greatness achieved by souly our own body or our own body powering something else. Having spaceships is obviously not human-powered, but human controlled, so maybe even a different title would be in order so as not to intrude upon the meaning of the original olympics. I just think using those huge olympic rings in the middle of space is a little tacky and there’s not a whole lot of reason for it apparant to the viewer. You could turn this into a very ‘grand’ and awe-inspiring piece with the tension, power, determination, and training that would go into a space (not battle) but contest for superiority. Races, tricks, power, synchronization. Think modern day olympics and apply it to your space version. Your image needs to have the tension we feel when we’re watching our country’s sprinter head to head with the challenging countries. We cannot predict who will win and we’re on the edge of our seats. The power that we see in every stride in the leg muscle of a runner, gymnast on the rings, the precision of a diver, etc. Illustrate these dynamics into your space-version without, obviously, using the human figure. How can you illustrate this with the ships and composition.

I just feel your composition is a little boring, the concept is great and that alone has some tension and dynamics in it, but the visual illustration you’re going for, I believe, at the moment, is lacking in a lot of what the challenge is asking for. There needs to be a grand scale of things, operaticness in every element: motion, colors, perspective, panoramic, design, composition. I don’t think it would be a bad idea to rework it from the start. You can keep all the ships you’ve made up till this point, just rework how you can illustrate the ideas. I know the guidelines of the challenge give you a lot of freedom, but you’ve just got to think, within that freedom, what’s smart, what’s going to get me noticed and what’s best going to illustrate the ideas that the challenge is based on? Even if winning is not that important to you, think about what it would take to win it? It might push you a little more.

Again, you can completely ignore all this and keep going and it won’t make me or you any more wrong or right. I just saw your conceptual written idea and felt that your composition and visual concept of the piece could be a lot better because the idea has enormous potential. I would just forget the boundaries of modern day olympics, and create your own human-race inetergalactic competition, be as original as possible, but use the dynamics of modern day sport disciplines and competitions to illustrate your ideas. I would sincerely advise you to ditch the olympic rings.

But again, take from it what you can and feel is helpful and good luck with all of it! I’ll keep up with your thread and humbly be as much help as I can. take care

#30

After reading Steve’s post, I had write specifically to defend myself. Although I definitely appreciate the time taken to critique my work, I feel hearing that my work was boring, tacky and that I should start over was slightly offensive. I don’t mind criticism, but all I have learned from that was that he didn’t like it and it could be so much better.

Steve -
I understand completely what you mean about the rings being symbols from Earth. I did some research before starting, and ended up at that same website.
I am purposefully being vague in my descriptions of what is going on because the contest is not about who can tell the best written story, but who can tell the best visual story. Those who have interpreted my sketches understood the basic idea - that Earth had a major part (if not full responsibility) in inviting the galaxies to compete. - hence the 5 rings. If I start getting too creative and adding rings or shapes to the Olympic symbol, It will stop being clear as to what it is or what is happening. My idea was that the competition would take place on the giant ring complexes. I have yet to finish modelling the rings to make that (hopefully) obvious.
I also know that there isn’t much energy in watching ships sit in space. I am always willing to change to make something better. Lucky for me, the WIP part of this let’s me see what I like and don’t like. If I decide that this image is too static, I will definitely alter it.
My plan for the tension was not to have an obvious power struggle, no ‘muscle’. I include thigs like anticipation in my idea of tension. To me, the explosions and fire (being so much more dramatic) are the release of that tension. I tend to go for the ‘calm before the storm’ because it is so often overlooked.
As for the direction of my piece, I like the way this is going and see no need to completely overhaul it. I am out to learn, not necessarily to win.

Once again, thank you for taking the time to write. There are no hard feelings - I just felt a little like I was hit below the belt.

#31

I understand completely, and, although my intentions were not to harm anything, I don’t think I could’ve responded any better than you have. But, the only reason I said anything was the potential to help as much as I could. I think we all deserve the right, here in this challenge, to hear every possible view, extremely negative to extremely positive. Just don’t think of it as a hit below the belt, more as one persons view who just might have no clue what he’s talking about! I only said anything because if I had the view, there lies potential someone else might as well, and they might not say anything. So I figured I’d risk sounding like the jerk just so you could hear an extreme of one side and maybe have it help some aspect of your piece. I don’t think my comment could’ve hurt your piece at all, the only thing I was worried about was you taking it the wrong way.

and the whole rings deal, I would just, personally, think that if that were to happen and an invitation went out to other galaxies, the Earth would want to impress them so much (kind of like the chosen sites of the olympic games today clean up and spiff up their city, even build new hi-tec stadiums and such), so earth would probably make an attempt to make them feel welcome and celebrate the enormous event with high-tech-whatever’s, and probably a new logo that fitted the coming together of different worlds would be finalized amongst the planning committees and such… maybe planets would even have their own flags then that could each be displayed. I dunno, I just still strongly feel the rings are not fitting to the situation, but again, simply my view.

But now you’ve explained your concept a little more clearly I’ll still try and offer my sincere 2 cents every now and then if that is ok. I can’t give any advice on the 3D end, merely how it looks visually to me, won’t be able to give an tips on how you’d accomplish it in the 3D world! But yea, keep it going if you’re going to stick with it and make it sweet. The quiet before the storm idea is not used enough and could potentially be a great success, but will definitely require some trial and error to capture that essence. I’ll pop in when I can, take care man

#32

Hey dude, I’m just going around to all my subscribed threads and posting this link.

It’s an article written by Greg Martin (quite an accomplished space artist) about, you guessed it, space. It tries to convey the passion he has for it, the beauty and mystery it contains and just a bunch of inspirational stuff that I believe is very fitting for this challenge and I think it will help all of us. It has a wealth of hubble space images and images from other great artists (and their websites) So anyone reading this, download it and read it all, I believe it will be of help

http://ch.artofgregmartin.com/

take care

#33

happy thanksgiving!

#34

WHAT? I thought those rings were magicians rings and all
the contestants used magic spells to beat their opponents!
Anyway I think the olympic symbol is a copyrighted
symbol. Can we use copyrighted symbols? In this
contest? I don’t think so, can’t use the Nike swish, can we? Everything
is supposed to be original. Hmmmm…yeah I would change the
symbol, hehe). I’d put some
contestant (javalin thrower or whatever)
in the front, inside one of the changed rings, with a view out
the window to the rest of the symbol space station, that would
be cool. Anyway you have a cool idea.
Oh, and you might have to call it something other than Olympics!
Just my opinion. Solar Solympics? Is that enough of a change?
my 3d entry in the GSO

:thumbsup:

#35

I am in the process of finding out about copyrights and such on the rings. However, with what I plan to do with them, it should be enough of a change to be OK.
As far as the concept of originality, I suppose we have to start and end the line somewhere. If we want to be critical, planets, spaceships and explosions aren’t original either. I figure I’ll start with a ‘base’ - something the viewer knows and understands - and branch out from there. I’m hoping my concept is the original part of this.
What I was really worried about was - What kind of things would be on the ring constructs for the intergalactic competitors? Would we offer them Mcdonalds and Taco Bell? We can’t really have clothing stores unless tailors were on sight to make ‘6 legged 4 arm’ suits. - Now this is where ideas come from…

#36

I put these together just to upload, but soon realized how helpful it was to see the progress for myself. I noticed and fixed a few lighting problems just from making the composite.

#37

close up of Earth ship

#38

close up of corner ship

#39

I am adding these to the post effects section because my Maya 6 particles will not render. These were done in photoshop and will be mapped to image planes. I hope that counts as the compositing part. I would have loved to do the particles and comp them in after effects.

By the way, If, after the contest, someone could let me know why particles won’t render in Maya6, I would greatly appreciate it.

#40

2nd nebula

#41

keep it going! make like 50 nebulas and cover the background with them, or make a black hole about to swallow the whole scene, now that’s epic!
anyways like the earth ship, I want one of those, almost there good luck!